“But this,” he said again, softly, “is no answer to my question. You were a witness of Mrs. Bristow’s will, and you signed a certain name to it. You cannot have done so hoping to vitiate the document by a feigned name. It would have been perfectly futile to begin with, and no woman could have thought of such a thing. That was, I presume, your lawful name?” “It is a name I have never borne; that you will very easily ascertain.” “Still it is your name, or why should you have signed it--in inadvertence, I suppose?” “Not certainly in inadvertence. Has anything ever made it familiar to me? If you will know, I had my reasons. I thought the sight of it might put things in a lawyer’s hands, would maybe guide inquiries, would make easier an object of my own.” “That object,” said Mr. Templar, “was to discover your husband?” She half rose to her feet, flushed and angry. “Who said I had a husband, or that to find him or lose him was anything to me?” Then, with a strong effort, she reseated herself in her chair. “That was a bold guess,” she said, “Mr. Templar, not to say a little insulting, don’t you think, to a respectable single lady that has never had a finger lifted upon her? I am of a well-known race enough. I have never concealed myself. There are plenty of people in Scotland who will give you full details of me and all my ways. It is not like a lawyer--a cautious man, bound by his profession to be careful--to make such a strange attempt upon me.” “I make no attempt. I only ask a question, and one surely most justifiable. You did not sign a name to which you had no right, on so important a document as a will; therefore you are Mrs. Gordon Grant, and a person to whom for many years I have had a statement to make.” She looked at him again with a dumb rigidity of aspect, but said not a word. “The communication I had to make to you,” he said, “was of a death--not one, so far as I know, that could bring you any advantage, or harm either, I suppose. I may say that it took place years ago. I have no reason, either, to suppose that it would be the cause of any deep sorrow.” “Sorrow?” she said, but her lips were dry, and could articulate no more. “I have nothing to do with your reasons for having kept your marriage so profound a secret,” he said. “The result has naturally been the long delay of a piece of information which perhaps would have been welcome to you. Mrs. Grant, your husband, George Gordon Grant, died nearly twenty years ago.”